Manjū – 饅頭

Howdy.
Yesterday I cooked something really delicious.
And it is vegan!
Not that I’d care… I’m more a carnivore then a vegetarian.
BUT. This stuff tastes awesome ^^
It’s kinda sweet samosa with a sweet bread-like shell and its filled with a sweet azuki-bean puree.

Ingredients

  • The dough
    • A pack dry yeast
      (Read on the back, for how much flour it’s supposed to be used!)
    • A bit salt
    • 250g flour
    • 1 tablespoon tapioca flour
    • 100g sugar
    • 125ml warm water
      (“hot” mode of the water-tap is sufficient)
  • The stuffing (Anko)
    • Two hands full off azuki beans
    • A big amount of spoons full with sugar
  • Tools needed
    • Baking paper
    • A rice steamer like this one (With steaming part!)
    • A bowl big enough to contain the dough
    • A mixer like this one

Processing

First put all the dry stuff for the dough into the bowl and mix it well, then add the water and mix it further.
After kneading it well you have to let the yeast grow for 3 hours.

In the meantime put the azuki beans into the rice cooker fill water into it and cook it as you would cook rice.
This will take an hour or so (depends on the cooker).
At some points the azuki beans will become soft and will decay.
You can check them from time to time by picking one of them out with a spoon (Warning:The hot steam can burn you)
and squeezing them  between your fingers. If they are soft and easy to squeeze let them boil to a thick sauce.
Then put some sugar into the sauce and try if it tastes all right.
Two or three big spoons of sugar are normally quite enough. If it’s not enough sweet you can add more.

Unplug the steamer and let it cool down a bit, then put the azuki beans into the mixer and mix it until it is a fine puree.
Then put it into the fridge and wait until the dough is ready.

Stuffing:

Take some baking paper and lay it into the steamer part of the rice cooker. Wash the pan where you had boiled the azuki beans in and fill it with fresh water.

Cut the dough into four pieces, press it to a flat triangle-like round thingy which is approximately 4 millimeters thick.
Put some spoons full of the paste into the middle of the dough plane and take three ends of it.
Put them together above the azuki bean past. Now take the three newly created ears and put them together too.
The dough-pack now should be sealed.
Put them with this part you have pressed together onto the baking paper, repeat it for the rest of the dough.
Remember to keep space between the buns, because they grow further inside the steamer!

Steam it for around 15-20 minutes.

Enjoy! ^^

2 thoughts on “Manjū – 饅頭”

  1. I don’t have a sweet tooth either, but I am willing to taste new foods like the one you featured here. My question is, do you let the beans to dry or let them be mushy when you stuff it in? I hope the bread part is firm and not become mushy when cooked.

    1. I cook them to the consistence of tooth paste or…
      They have to decay within the pot and get a consistence similar to toothpaste, so that they don’t flow away but neither break appart when you put them into your “steemed bismarck dough” 🙂

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